No Excuses
(Romans 6: 1-11)
Back when I was with the Houston Police Department, I enjoyed working traffic and writing tickets. Traffic was tough in Houston, especially on the evening shift when people were trying to get home after a long day at work. I would keep an eye out for the impatient driver, the ones who thought it was okay to bend the rules of the road just a little bit so they could get where they were going just a few minutes, if that many, earlier. One of my favorite tickets was “cutting corners to avoid traffic control device.” I would watch for that motorist who was stuck in stalled traffic several cars back in line waiting for the light to change so they could make a right-hand turn. As they grew more and more impatient, they would glance to their right to see if there was a parking lot they could shoot through, shortening their wait. Usually, it was the parking lot of a convenience store or a fast-food restaurant and as they zipped through the lot, they sent customers walking to and from their vehicles scurrying for cover. Sometimes they would spot me and make a sudden stop and go into the convenience store to buy something they didn’t really need or, if it was a fast-food restaurant they would get in line and buy a dinner they really didn’t plan on eating. That was okay. It was punishment enough for their impatience. But the ones that didn’t spot me got pulled over and I always enjoyed some of their creative excuses, many a medical or personal emergency needing to find a bathroom as soon as possible. The best one though was the guy who, when I asked for his license, gave me a Monopoly Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. I thought it was pretty funny and explained that it really didn’t work that way. You can’t knowingly break the law and expect to slide because you have a pass that gets you out of a jam.
And that’s what I think the Apostle Paul was dealing with when he wrote his letter to the Christian church in Rome. These folks had been saved, their sins had been forgiven, their future was secure, so what was the harm in a little occasional sin here and there? God loves to forgive us of our sins so why not give him something to do in his spare time? After all, we’re not perfect.
That’s the thing with the Apostle Paul. He was a proficient letter writer, but the problem was that if you got a letter from Paul, it generally wasn’t because things were going well and he just wanted to send you an “atta-boy” letter to share with the congregation. It has gotten back to him that there were some in the church who were reasoning that a belief in God’s free grace provides an excuse for that occasional lapse into sin. It begged the question: If forgiveness is guaranteed, do we have the freedom to sin as much as we want because our future home is secure? I know that seems absurd, but there were some in the Roman church that were making that argument with a straight face, and it was apparently such a concern that someone reached out to Paul so he could intervene and set them straight.
Paul begins by asking: Should we continue sinning so grace will multiply? And he answers his own question with an emphatic: Absolutely not! All of us died to sin. How can we still live in it? Well, now you’ve done it. Somebody snitched us out and now we’ve got one of those “Paul” letters. Let’s hope it doesn’t get circulated to the other churches, or worse yet included in a book of all his letters! He then rhetorically asks: Or don’t you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? He explains to his readers, and us, that we were buried together with Jesus, through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life. Christ died for us, taking upon himself our sins, we sought and received his forgiveness for our sins, and now we can begin a new life unencumbered by sin should we choose to accept it. Paul reasons that if we were united together in a death like his, we will also be united together in a resurrection like his, born anew, a “do-over” so to speak. Paul says: This is what we know: the person that we used to be was crucified with him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore, because a person who has died has been freed from sin’s power. If you’ve been freed, why would you want to go back to the “used to be”? Paul reasons that if we have died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him. That old life is behind us, and we have a new life, one more enjoyable and liberating, to live to its fullest. Paul tells us that in the same way that Christ died to sin but now lives for God with his life, so should we. We should consider ourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.
I think what concerns Paul, and should concern us too, is that we may become a little too lackadaisical in our daily lives, taking our freedom, our new life for granted and writing off new sins as no big deal. Afterall, a promise is a promise, and God says he keeps his word regardless. As believers we have died to sin but the fear Paul has is that we may yet offer parts of ourselves to sin. It’s not that big a deal, everyone else does it, nobody is getting hurt other than me, so what’s the real harm? God’s forgiveness does not make sin less serious as his Son’s death for our sins shows us the dreadful seriousness of sin. The availability of God’s mercy must not become an excuse for careless living and moral laxness. People watch us and if they see us doing something we know we shouldn’t do then they can rationalize it as an excuse for their bad behavior. Scott the Methodist does it so it must be okay. We become the hypocrites that make their behavior okay and acceptable in the general scheme of things.
We are now in a position to become influencers. We are part of a new creation, a new kind of person who has the power not to sin, or as John Wesley put it: “We are still subject to death, but we need not be subject to sin.” We have experienced a change in our character and are now liberated to walk in the newness of life, marked by living for God and the expectations of resurrection.
God hasn’t taken us out of the world. We are not mindless robots programed never to sin again. We still feel like sinning and sometimes we will sin even though we know better. The difference is that before we were saved, we were slaves to our sinful nature, it controlled us in ways we are now ashamed of and embarrassed to admit. But now, when confronted with those temptations we can choose to live for Christ.
So, let us consider ourselves to be what God has in fact made us. We have a new start, and the Holy Spirit will help us become in our daily experience what Christ has declared us to be, people who make no excuses for the life of freedom they now live and enjoy.
Let us pray.
Gracious and glorious God, how grateful we are for the sacrifice made by your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary where he took on our sins so that we could live free of the burdens of our past lives. We pray that your Holy Spirit will show the way and that during our moments of weakness and temptation we will find the strength to do what we know is right. We pray that we may be a visible and living example to others as to the kind of liberating life one can have if they live as you would have them live. Move us to live openly and joyfully making no excuses for the lifestyle in Christ we have gladly accepted. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.
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6/21/26
No Excuses
Paul tells us that in the same way that Christ died to sin but now lives for God with his life, so should we.